gmdebruyn

Where can i get the illuminated door sills?
How much are they, and how easy are they to install myself? I will have a 2005 e55 in November.
Is it possible to turn them on and off from a control somewhere in the car?

Thanks,
Gareth

TCM

From my understnding, you need to source the parts from Europe. Install is very complex as the wiring required it quite complex. Unless you have to have it, I would suggest avoiding it. Hope this helps.

Beowulf

Check out this thread for more info:

https://mbworld.org/forums/showthrea...ght=door+sills

Gotta love Kev04C320's comments!

gmdebruyn

thanks Beowulf.

http://gallery.mbnz.org/publications/pub.asp?id=134

here's the link for the DIY project. by the looks of it, start it early one saturday morning and have no plans on going anywhere for the day or night.

t-bone

I personally would not attempt the install myself. However, I don't know that much about the electrical system and wiring and where the pieces easily pop on and off.

This is an expensive non-perfomance mod to do. But I think it was worth it.

gmdebruyn

thanks t-bone.

question: can you turn them off and on?

scorchie

The E-class is a completely different beast than the ML, and OEM sills range from completely different to somewhat different from aftermarket sills.

If you have genuine Mercedes OEM (or AMG OEM) door sills, the complete wiring harness includes the fuse holder which plugs into the rear SAM. Thus, the wiring is not "tapping" off anything in the car, it has it's own fuse, and comes from the main power supply. I know some here might consider tapping wires "not a hack" and "the only way to do things", but for power supplies, Mercedes doesn't seem to agree and thus provides the whole harness.

The installation for all four sills does involve running wires along both sills and through to the trunk. To wire things in the trunk requires removing all the linings.

If I were planning on doing this job on a W211, I would guess two hours would be a fair amount of dedicated time. In past installations, I have allocated four hours just to be safe.

For myself and those who prefer it, I wire the sills a bit differently so they can be shut off if not desired. This adds a bit to the complexity and I figure an additional two hours for that type of install.

-s-

t-bone

Nope. They only come on when you open the door and turn off when you close the door. And since mine are the OEM AMG ones, mine will also turn off on their own if the door is open for too long. I don't know if the aftermarket ones do this.

miroj

In the W203 the wire crosses sides underneath the rear seat bench.

miroj

If you used the Mercedes wiring loom with the aftermarket sills then it would behave in exactly the same way.

MB Fanatic

This is something I would not attempt on my own. I would rather spend the money and have the deler do it as there is a lot of wiring and retrofitting that must be done. Plys one wrong move and your warranty could be void for certain things.

scorchie

Thank you! That's very helpful to those of us in the E55 forum.

-s-

scorchie

Sigh... if you have aftermarket sills with LEDs then the original wiring look will feed 12v into a sill that needs 3v, since the aftermarket wiring loom has a voltage regulator (just one) at the power feed. I think they would flash for a fraction of second and never come on again, which is certainly bevaviour not exactly as described.

Besides, we'd probably have a very tough time getting just the wiring loom here in the US.

-s-

miroj

If you had the aftermarket kit then you would already have the voltage reducers. The MB loom is just another spare part (but really hard to order by your account) which supplies the 12V lines and a fuse.

Perhaps a sigh could best be followed by an inhale to send some oxygen to your logic processing area.

Rather than look for feeble contradictions I refer back your original post of not hacking the existing power lines and my suggestion came after that.

miroj

Those reading "universal" statements made by you might think it applies to other cars. Clearly it doesnt.